Many consumers expect Amazon to offer the cheapest prices on products, but analysis suggests that isn’t always the case. The expectation is created by the perception that the company create and that’s done by way of a clever pricing strategy.

Amazon doesn’t have the lowest prices across the board, but instead focus’s on offering headline grabbing deals on the most popular and heavily searched items. Meanwhile, in the background, slightly less popular products and ancillary items are often more costly than those from the competition. This largely goes unnoticed by customers who are blinded by the halo effect created by the popular product prices, and so they don’t bother to check or compare.

I mention this for two reasons:

1. If you’re buying from Amazon, make sure you check all prices, and not just those of ‘headline’ items.

2. This may be a strategy you can use in your own business… offer rock-bottom prices on  the most popular items and then make up for the lost profits on items where prices aren’t checked so closely.